Clay and Wattles

A couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed by Vivian Song of the Sun Media syndicate about energy efficiency and climate change in the north. She’s writing a series called “Green Planet” over the next week or so. Part one is here: FALLOUT ZONE: Moving targets’ a challenge. I’m quoted in this one.

Like any good multi-media journalist, Vivian also shot some video of our house which appears on the canoe.ca website. The caption reads

Kevin Kennedy, a city councillor in Yellowknife, shows his eco-friendly home for our cameras, while providing tips to make your house greener.

Here is the video:

Click here if you want to rate it on the Canoe site. Click here for more videos tagged “Environment” on the Canoe site, including several which Vivian shot in Yellowknife.

I recently ran across an Australian blog called Typing is Not Activism: its title is a very pithy reminder of a problem that has been troubling me lately. Likewise, recycling is not activism, using canvas shopping bags is not activism, joining Ecology North is not activism. All of these are good actions, but, by themselves, they’re just tiny gestures in the right direction.

Everywhere I go in my activist life, I talk to people who truly understand the problem of climate change (and other environmental and social problems). Yes, there are huge swaths of people who “don’t get it” and would rather focus on the marital hijinks of Britney Spears. Yes, there are active climate change deniers (though I’ve personally met very few of them). I’m talking instead about the people who come to the meetings, donate to environmental causes, display the bumper stickers, and so on.

Somehow, many such people understand and acknowledge the problem on one hand, while failing to make the connection to their own behaviour on the other. There are many exceptions, of course. Nor am I perfect either. Still, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable to suggest that the majority of environmental activists/supporters are somewhat misguided (I want to say hypocritical, but that implies intention – I don’t think this failure is entirely intentional).

Call it “Al Gore Syndrome.” Part of me wants to thunder curses down upon “environmentalists” who drive cars, eat meat, live in enormous houses, or fly in airplanes, for example. Don’t people understand that the solutions to climate change are in their own hands? It might be inconvenient to change, but it is possible.

I’ve heard a lot of excuses about automobiles — as a rule, I try not to make people feel guilty about driving (after all, I’ve owned cars myself), but let me say once and for all: if you care about climate change, you need to make a plan to stop using your private vehicle. In extreme cases, it might be a five year plan — maybe it involves moving house or changing jobs. So be it.

Meat-eating is the last thing that a lot of people will change — for some of us, meat-eating is part of our identities. In the north, I run across many, many people who claim that their meat-eating is sustainable because the food is harvested from the land. If your daily diet of meat truly does come entirely from local, wild sources (or organic, sustainable farms), then you’re in the clear. If not, then you have to live with the knowledge that, outside of driving, your optional meat-eating has the largest environmental impact of any consumer activity. Nobody says you have to go “cold turkey” (pun intended), but you can make a plan to reduce your meat consumption and stick with it. Yes, I know you say you hardly ever eat red meat — you’re practically a vegetarian already really — but be honest: are you really keeping track?

Being permitted to live in a big, energy-wasting house with a fossil fuel heating system is a Canadian birthright. We can’t freeze in the dark, can we? Certainly not. And yet, if you live with a small family in a monster home with wasteful systems, you need to make some changes, perhaps even move. Household systems are in the top five largest consumers of fossil fuels and creaters of pollution in North America. The average new home in Canada is 1800 square feet and the average family size is about three people. That means that if you live in a single family home of average efficiency (or worse) that allots more than roughly 600 square feet per person, you’re definitely part of the problem — even without acknowledging that the average house is already extremely wasteful and unsustainable. On the plus side, you can switch to biomass or other alternative heating systems, use electricity and water efficiently, and perhaps disregard floor space to some extent — even so, you can’t ignore this question if you truly want to solve the problems of climate change and environmental degradation.

Air travel is another consumer activity that we give ourselves a free pass on. Sure, I’ll make sacrifices, but not my vacation! I’m an eco-tourist, travelling in far off untouristed places anyway. I need that trip to Edmonton every three months to stay sane. Wrong. You want it — you don’t need it. Buses and trains can be inconvenient, but they are the only sustainable forms of mass transportation in the world; when they are available options, we must use them — when they aren’t, we must carefully evaluate our decision to travel. Travelling less or by slower, uncomfortable methods is a hard pill, but, if you really want to stop climate change, you can’t keep making exceptions for yourself.

I know I’m not perfect either. I know some of these things are difficult. I don’t expect everyone to change overnight. Even so, if you want your environmentalism to be more than a style or a social activity, you have to ask yourself: Am I all talk? Do I really want to live up to my values? Can I afford to do otherwise?

I spent most of yesterday at the World Community Film Festival, an annual showing of films from around the world. The topics are mostly in the social and environmental realm, but the sheer number of films ensures a wide variety of topics and perspectives.

Western Arctic Moving Pictures is the local sponsor of the festival, which travels around the country every year. This is our third year hosting it in Yellowknife. It continues today and Monday, so come down to Northern United Place and check it out.

Yesterday I saw The Ecological Footprint, a film by and about the Global Footprint Network and its efforts to create a baseline method of measuring environmental impact.

I’ve linked to it before, but it is worth checking your own footprint. What I found most interesting was the discussion of national footprints: I was surprised to learn that Italians use one third of the resources per capita that Americans do (and Canadians aren’t far off the North American pace) – nobody would accuse them of having poor quality of life.

Global Dimming argued that our impact on climate is actually more complicated than we’ve been thinking: while greenhouse gases are trapping heat in our atmosphere, air pollution is also reflecting some of that radiation back before it hits the earth. As we reduce pollution, we may actually be making climate change worse!

Independent Intervention: Breaking Silence was the inspiring story of independent journalists in Iraq trying to get uncensored, unsanitized news and images to the western, and particularly American, public.

Favela Rising was about a musical and social movement in the poorest slums of Rio, intervening between corrupt and brutal military police on one hand and drugdealer armies on the other. Brazil is one of my favourite places I’ve never been, so I was fascinated by the culture and contradictions of this amazing story; it was moving, sad, and inspiring.

Best of all, I saw The Power of Community – How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, a film about Cuba as a laboratory for how to the rest of us might cope with peak oil, a crisis they’ve already been through. In the case of Cuba, the crisis was artificial – a result of the ham-handed U.S. embargo and the collapse of the USSR.

Even so, the resourcefulness of the Cuban people is amazing and inspiring. They managed to switch their entire system of agriculture over to organic and sustainable methods within a few years. They made innovative changes to their transportation system. Above all, they maintained their investments in education and health care to provide for the future. I’m sure that few Cubans would choose to go through drastic oil withdrawal again – it was clearly a painful and scarring transition – yet, there are many lessons for the rest of us in their experience.

Well, I’m sorry to report that my friend Doug came in second in last night’s election. He worked very hard, as did a lot of friends and volunteers. I don’t think we made any terrible mistakes and the final result seemed to come down to “popularity” for lack of a better word. In saying so, I don’t mean to insult our new MLA – the winning candidate had many family connections and decades worth of personal contacts in the riding, which are indeed worth something; in spite of all Doug’s great leadership qualities and vision, he didn’t have those roots.

I am excited to report, however, that my friend Bob Bromley was elected in the nearby riding of Weledeh – it wasn’t a great night, but Bob’s victory helped confirm that progress on environmental and social issues is at least possible.